"That's Not Football"

Kaboom!...End of story.

That's what Aaron Cusack heard from passersby who didn't agree with his tournament structure—loads of varying 3v3 games, under and overloaded formats, narrow and long pitches. No scores or tables listed. What?!

Wait a minute... doesn't this sound exactly like what we do in practices all the time? Variation of sizes and formats. They played games that were different? How dare they ruin the game!

This reflects how married we are to traditional viewpoints—shaped by our educational systems, our own playing experiences, and watching adult models. We've been indoctrinated into a Physical Education mentality that designs games around technical, tactical, and linear models for weekends, all to check compliance boxes.

Today we say kids need "free-play" time because they don't get enough creativity (street football). We hear this, but don't they get all the creativity they need from following linear drills and predetermined tactics? If the present system was so efficient, they wouldn't need street football.

We all know the FA in the UK plans to change formats for kids—holding off larger formats every two years, implementing by 2026/27. Great idea.

But here's the thing: if we believe 3v3, 5v5, 7v7, or 9v9 games are so sacrosanct, why do we play every other variation of small-sided games during practice sessions? We implement the same weekend games with scores to list, believing learning is based on ranks and standardized tests. We've accepted that complex, open systems like soccer should be mechanistic and reduced to compartmentalized learning to control outcomes (in systems no one can actually control).

It's easy to tell someone what to do (techniques/tactics and weekend game structures) and expect obedience from young people. Every walk of life does this. Even the arts teach for outcomes rather than process, just like schools do from the time we start walking.

As Aristotle and the Jesuits knew: "Give me the child until seven years old, and I will show you the man." Early indoctrination of ideas is powerful—and it's worse today after the early 1900s took over our educational systems.

The weekends are standardized tests that never change. They're like doing the same recital every weekend on a different pitch. And this is what we do to our youth.

Now, this is one tournament with opposition. It took decades before formats started being reduced. We're still reducing, yet we still don't get creativity in adaptive systems.

Variation shouldn't be reserved for one tournament or practice sessions only.

To create youth who are creative, resilient, joyful (wanting to stay in sports), curious experimenters, innovative problem-solvers who become aware of their whole nervous system—holistically.

Maybe decades from now, long after I'm dead and gone, we'll see weekend games for young people that vary in formats and sizes, just like we believe we must do in the "process" of getting better at a task during the weekdays.

If I was czar of youth sports, you would experience every weekend:

Example: VARIED GAMES OF FORMATS AND SIZES — 10 & 11 year old's

(Instead of 9v9 Games)

Fall season (8 weekend mixed games, no particular order):

• 3 weekends: 3v3 games

• 3 weekends: 5v5 games

• 2 weekends: 7v7 games

Spring season (8 weekend mixed games, no particular order):

• 3 weekends: mixed games i.e. 2v1, 3v2, 4v2 & 3v3

• 3 weekends: 4v4 games

• 2 weekends: 6v6 games

Next year they would change. Why?

One varied game is 1 game only. (Not win/loss but experience/information) Why would anyone only play one game over and over and over again with no difference? When we are young, we love games that change. Is anyone old enough that some days you even played with different teams? The young people need the choice—their choice.

Imagination and Creativity in an Open Adaptive System

It keeps change and creativity with joy at the forefront and settles down coaches and parents trapped in categorizing kids, thinking they must do "x" to become the best. The best youth will continue being the best youth. Some will drop off and some lesser-effective kids will rise to become the best. Why? Because no kid who likes to play will be deselected out of a poorly conceived system designed by administrative educational psychology.

Professionalizing our youth is the worst decision society has made. Youth Football/Soccer is on the opposite side of Professional Football or Adult Football. The early years of How, What, Why, When and Where of Adaptive Learning is NOT THE SAME—(not that professionals wouldn't learn from varied games, oh yeah, they do, don't they?)

We don't do this to kids good in math, science, or language arts (they're not expected to display aptitude tests every weekend, in public). The best always rise to the top and are also fortunate and lucky when their number is called. Maybe everyone could have a more flexible, enriched, nuanced existence in childhood—where PLAY is understood as vital, as our anthropologists, zoologists, and biologists know.

Why not suggest to your club, to organize one tournament like Aaron talked about as a start?

I guarantee most all the clubs and academies would say:

"That's not football."

I say — "That's not creative play!"